The issue with braking distance and jackknifing could be resolved with smaller trucks. The 18 wheeler we know is optimal because it maximize the cubic volume driven by one person. If you don't need the human driver, two smaller trucks might be better than one.
Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
221–230 of 435 posts
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Society is literally willing to let truck drivers die to maintain shipping times. See the responses during the height of COVID-19, or even just the demands placed on every day operators cross-referenced with their average health and mortality rates. Our treatment of truck drivers is already subhuman, I don’t think we’re likely to extend a lot of understanding to the robots.
That's a bit of hyperbole. Lots of jobs take their toll on your health. That's nothing special about truck drivers, and it doesn't mean we "let them die". And you're ignoring the fact that not requiring a driver is significantly cheaper. And when it's speed versus cost, cost generally wins. So yes, society is absolutely going to be fine with trucks pausing in bad weather, because it means cheaper shipping . (And stuf…
On truckers dying on the job: you'd probably agree that there's arrangements that could save more truckers' lives but are not applied because of cost and lack of social pressure. For instance driver fatigue is said to be the primary cause of death among trucker, and that's obviously an issue we could throw money at to at least alleviate (but it wouldn't always be cheaper, that's the point)
And to your point, yes, that same logic would aplly to a ton of high risk occupations. There's building construction techniques that cost more but have less risk, but we won't apply them where there's no pressure to do so.
Are we letting them die then ? I don't see the hyperbole in saying yes, as a society we're not willing to put the money to reduce these deaths. I see it as a part of life, and don't think we'll change much even as autonomous vehicle come (if they kill 1 in 10000 people but cost way less than now, we'll swallow the pill collectively)
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
you mean like a .. train
No. Trains are great for what they do, but roads go more places.
Do roads have to go more places? Are they dramatically cheaper and easier to make and cheaper to maintain than train tracks? Or do we just already have a bunch of them?
Mind you I'm not taking about last-mile dirt road up a mountain to one family, but the massive arteries with enormous throughput that constitute the vast majority of lbs/mile of shipping.
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a great idea and the first I've heard of it. Set a maximum weight of 5,000 lbs for an ordinary license. Minivans will come in just under the line. Small SUVs like the CRV or RAV4 will be allowed, as will small trucks like the Ford Maverick. Indeed, most of those vehicles are under 4,000 lbs. Even some larger SUVs like the Honda Pilot or (just barely) the Toyota 4runner get under the bar. Even a low-specced F-…
A distracted driver can kill pedestrians just as easily in a 3999lb vehicle.
All other things being equal, that's true. All other things are not equal though. The 4000lb+ vehicles often have worse visibility, so you have to pay more attention to make sure a kid didn't wander in front of your truck while you were waiting to make a right turn.
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#225Great post with good details. I wonder whether a "truck only" roadway might be a reasonable simplifier here (yes building a 1000 miles of road for trucks only is billions of $ but there are perhaps segments between say ports and warehouses where that might make sense. And as someone who has been fooling around with robotics since the 80's the whole "sensors have to see far enough ahead to respond" is well known. The…
You must mean a railway then ? Edit: by the way, why don't we have autonomous freight trains?
No. One form of transportation doesn't have to exist for everything. Rail is the long haul and trucking is the last mile.
Autonomous trucking should start out with its own dedicated part of the highway between distribution centers. We are trying to build autonomous driving to accommodate our current road structure which humans currently drive on. A dedicated / isolated lane with sensors, etc should be the start. Start small and then you can expand after getting feedback data. Everything is always so costly and unattainable because everyone wants to implement it with the current infrastructure but its not needed.
For reference we already do these types of dedicated lanes with ezpass express or HOV lanes.
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Society is literally willing to let truck drivers die to maintain shipping times. See the responses during the height of COVID-19, or even just the demands placed on every day operators cross-referenced with their average health and mortality rates. Our treatment of truck drivers is already subhuman, I don’t think we’re likely to extend a lot of understanding to the robots.
That's a bit of hyperbole. Lots of jobs take their toll on your health. That's nothing special about truck drivers, and it doesn't mean we "let them die". And you're ignoring the fact that not requiring a driver is significantly cheaper. And when it's speed versus cost, cost generally wins. So yes, society is absolutely going to be fine with trucks pausing in bad weather, because it means cheaper shipping . (And stuf…
For the same reason, we'll likely be absolutely fine with them driving a bit slower as well once there's no driver to pay by the hour - that'll save money not just on the automation but on fuel cost as well.
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If anything driverless helps dramatically on this front. If you can run trucks 24/7 without stopping then you can cut their speed say 33% or whatever and still come out on top. I think that this line of reasoning misses the forest for the trees. If the promise of a silver bullet is a mode of transportation that can safely and reliably work 24/7 day and night with limited to no human interaction and be able to move…
The problem with rail is that most businesses don't want a whole train worth, and removing just a single car from the train is hard.
> The problem with rail is that most businesses don't want a whole train worth, and removing just a single car from the train is hard.
You don't need to remove cars from trains. The transportation world has been moving around shipping containers for almost a century. Shipping containers, also known as intermodal containers, were designed specifically to simplify the task of moving arbitrary units of cargo between modes of transportation, which includes to/from trains. You just need to drop them off on a flat car, take them from A to B, and then drop them off to handle the last mile.
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#228I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is hig…
> but I really don't feel like society will accept anything other than trucks / vehicles that are able to operate under all conditions Trucks are different because they're just for transportation of goods. As challenging weather arrives they can just wait at the nearest rest stop, pull over on the shoulder, etc. Your shipping will be delayed, but outside of that I don't think society will care. Totally acceptable as…
Plus; AI shipping lanes. Humans for last mile and other issues.
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#229We need smart roads. Not just smart cars. Until that happens, autonomous is impractical. You don’t want to build an autonomous system to match human error rate. That basically got us nowhere in the past seven years since Elon bs’d his way to selling vaporware.
Correct this is the best path forward. Night time is typically when there is less traffic and we should be able to at least utilize that for autonomous transportation between distribution centers. Then slowing keep upping the advancement as roads are repaired, replaced, etc. If you build a smart road for lets say just trucking, now you can map out the best places for distribution centers, similar to what UPS, Fedex figured out for air transportation and packages.
Its a bit ridiculous that in 2024 we have all these apps that tell you about accidents and obstructions but none that actually help re-direct traffic in a meaningful way. You have to hedge your bets on any "suggested" better route.
With smart roads department of transportation could get real analyze on crowded intersections, best place for future on/off ramps, access roads, etc. Traffic congestion and planning is usually an after thought when housing developments go up and then its a catch-up game.
Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a bit of hyperbole. Lots of jobs take their toll on your health. That's nothing special about truck drivers, and it doesn't mean we "let them die". And you're ignoring the fact that not requiring a driver is significantly cheaper. And when it's speed versus cost, cost generally wins. So yes, society is absolutely going to be fine with trucks pausing in bad weather, because it means cheaper shipping . (And stuf…
On truckers dying on the job: you'd probably agree that there's arrangements that could save more truckers' lives but are not applied because of cost and lack of social pressure. For instance driver fatigue is said to be the primary cause of death among trucker, and that's obviously an issue we could throw money at to at least alleviate (but it wouldn't always be cheaper, that's the point) And to your point, yes, tha…
Driver fatigue is taken way more seriously than it used to be and measures and laws have been put in place to minimize it by forcing maximum driving and minimum resting periods.
So, ignoring the fact that society doesn't just get together every year and decide to let people die, I'd say it's absolute cynical hyperbole to say society is "letting truckers die".